You’ll Never Guess Emirates’ Next US Destination

Even though this is an old topic, I feel compelled to leave a few remarks missed by others. First, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic only serve London Gatwick from MCO and there are few connecting flights at Gatwick (a few large and medium-sized destinations in Europe and North Africa). It seems like BA mainly uses Gatwick for holiday destinations in the Americas and Mediterranean region. Virgin only serves North American destinations from Gatwick, so there's no onwards connections. Try many of the popular websites to buy air travel and I don't think any of them, or only a few, sell tickets that involve a transfer between Gatwick and Heathrow (which takes 3+ hours). So basically, the only airline to provide connecting flights via Europe to the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa is Lufthansa via Frankfurt. Miami is a three-hour drive from Orlando/Central Florida, so it's not a great option to drive to MIA and leave your car parked during your trip. A few factors overlooked are that: MCO is a hub of Emirate's partner JetBlue (onwards connections), Qatar Airways started service to MIA in 2014 (so there may not have been enough of or too crowded a market [=lower profit margins] for Emirates at MIA), and MCO serves the entire Central Florida region (people will drive an hour from the Atlantic coast [Melbourne, Cocoa, Titusville, Daytona Beach] and the Tampa Bay area). There are about 8 million people that live within about 1.5 hours of MCO. There's the theme parks, of course, but also a lot of IT and engineering companies in Central Florida (especially along the Space Coast). And then there's a decent-sized population of immigrants from South Asia and Southeast Asia. A lot of destinations in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Africa are now just two flights, instead of three, away from Central Florida. And for destinations already served by other airlines with just two flights, there's now more competition. MCO statistics are available at: https://www.orlandoairports.net/about-us/#traffic-statistics For calendar year 2015 (click "Passenger Statistics by Airline">"Calendar year 2015"), there were 23,540 enplaned and 22,616 deplaned revenue pax and 1091/1194 non-revenue pax. From 1 September through 31 December is 122 days, so 122 flights. Emirates' 777-200LR seats 266 passengers. The inaugural service was operated with a 491-pax A380 (Emirates' website says their A380s come in 489 and 517 pax configurations, but several websites say that A6-EOM, which operated the inaugural flight is configured as F14 C76 Y401 [=491 pax]). So for outbound flights, the total capacity in 2015 was 32,677 seats ([121*266]+491) vs. 24,631 passengers (revenue and non-revenue), which is a 75.4% load factor (72.0% for only revenue pax). On inbound flights, there was the same 32,677 seats with 23,810 pax (revenue and non-revenue), which is a 72.9% load factor (69.2% for only revenue pax). And to be sure that's not just because of inaugural discounted fares, for June Emirates had 6,208 enplaned and 6,121 deplaned revenue pax and 250 enplaned and 249 deplaned non-revenue pax with 7,980 total seat capacity each-way (30 days x 266). That's 80.9% load capacity outbound (77.8% load capacity considering only revenue pax) and 79.8% load capacity inbound (76.7% load capacity considering only revenue pax). Looks like they're doing well.

Lucky.. I think you have a typo in this article and surprised other folks didn't see it.. Dubai-Orlando is not +1-Day if it leaves past midnight local time.

There is a lot of demand from many passengers in this area to have Emirate start service from Newark. I see in this post that the announcement was due sometime in March - April time frame this year, but disappointed that there is no announcement yet. Any further update on when Emirate is planning to start service from Newark?

I am very disappointed that Emirates did not pick Miami (instead Orlando). Miami is one of the biggest airports which can accomodate 777 airbus

Eager to see Miami !! will be a success loaded from all the latin expats ine UAE.. from Miami connection easier to Bogota panama, ...